Postgame Show: There Is Nothing Illegal About Being a Human
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For those of you who do not want politics with your sports, I understand and this will be easy for you to skip in the postgame. But I am worried about a number of different things that are happening in America at the moment and I'd like to get a little more informed on what is happening with mass deportation because it has felt, this cry to get people out of this country, has felt so deeply un-American to me as to be just generally a

and make me feel like my principles run counter to the principles that are most popular in this country. And so it's bothered me for a while as the son of exiles on a show that has a lot of parents who are immigrants in a city where...

It's built atop the idea that people are from somewhere else and come and make a life here. I wanted to get more informed on my fears and everything I see happening during an uncertain time. Jose Antonio Vargas is a sensible person. And beyond that, he's a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, Emmy nominated filmmaker, a Tony nominated producer.

Also, an undocumented immigrant, came to the United States from the Philippines in 1993 when he was 12 years old. And he is the author of the bestseller, Dear America, Notes of an Undocumented Citizen, and the forthcoming book, White is Not a Country. Jose, thank you for joining us. I look forward to getting more informed here on what is happening.

When I'm introducing you this way, and I am both appalled and fearful about everything that's happening in this country, you do what with that assessment? Well, I'm glad that you're doing what you're doing, because I actually think this is a moment for people to speak up.

at whatever venue they can. Like, as you said, this is a sports show and some people may not need to hear politics in a sports show, but the reality is politics is literally everywhere around us. It's a matter of, you know, how awake you are and aware you want to be. And to be honest, we can't afford for people not to be aware. Like, I live in California, a third of the state. I mean, I'm coming to you from Berkeley, California right now, where people fight over kale.

And in California, a third of all of our residents are immigrant. Right. So what's going to happen? And I think what you're seeing now, you know, Governor Newsom, I feel lucky and blessed to live in California. Governor Newsom in a couple of weeks is going to have a special session with the legislature to prepare for what is California going to do. Right. And I think that's what you're going to see happen now.

And I have to say, this is in the past week or so, all the messages I've been getting on Instagram and on email from people

at least probably 10 people who are thinking of leaving, like undocumented immigrants, a couple of them with DACA. I don't know if your audience is familiar with DACA. This is the Obama program that gave legal status and work permits to about 500,000, 600,000 immigrants who were born here as kids. And then, you know, born here as kids, were brought here illegally as children, and then went through the school like I did. I didn't qualify for that. I was three months too old.

But I've heard from about nine DACA recipients that are waiting for their fate to be sealed and are considering leaving, self-deporting. And maybe this is the intention, right? Scare people. And I'll say to you that three of them are nurses.

Doesn't this country need more nurses and medical support for an aging country? So I don't know. By the way, these are people from Asia, from Africa. You know, you forget one out of 10 black people in this country is a black immigrant. You know, this is not only a border Mexico issue. The third largest undocumented population in this country are coming from India.

As a journalist, by the way, it's been so frustrating that my colleagues, I used to be a political reporter. I covered the Obama campaign for the Washington Post. It's been so frustrating how,

I don't think anybody has asked J.D. Vance's partner, Usha Vance, who is a first-generation American whose parents are immigrants from India, like, what does she think that the third largest undocumented population are from India who overstayed their visas? What are we going to do with all those undocumented Indian people? Should we make sure? By the way, 700,000 people. Are there more than 700,000 people in Montana? That's a lot of people, right? Yeah.

Gesundheit. Bless you. I mean, we don't have a sneeze button. We have a cough button. But two of your sneezes got out on the air. What are your worst case fears here, Jose? Like what is, without being a fear monger, what are you really living with today? Thank you, by the way, for saying the fear monger part. Because we've had enough fear mongering, right? I am a journalist. I'm constitutionally built like a journalist, which means I want facts.

I want reality. I want like what's in front of me. And for me, the worst case scenario is we're gonna see families ripped apart in real time.

That's what we're going to see. We are going to see, because again, how complex this issue is, is you have parents who are undocumented, perhaps, and then you have kids who are U.S.-born U.S. citizens, right? Because of the 14th Amendment, thanks to Black Americans who fought to make sure that we had the 14th Amendment, right? Thanks to that, those children of undocumented immigrants are U.S. citizens, right?

Right. So you're going to see a scenario where they could be ripped apart from each other. This whole denaturalization. Have you heard about this denaturalization planned as part of the equation? Good times. So these are people like my grandmother. My grandmother immigrated here from the Philippines in 1984. She naturalized 1994.

And so what does that mean? Does that mean that because my grandmother does speak perfect English, I do, I speak perfect English enough for the both of us, does that mean that her citizenship is on the line? Because she may not be what you consider, quote unquote, an American because of her accent and because she, I don't know, has a different culture than what people consider to be, quote unquote, mainstream. So denaturalization happens.

heartbreak of watching families ripped apart in real time. And for me, the real question around the economy, you know, I don't know, most people don't know this. Most states in this country don't allow undocumented people to drive.

They need us to work, but we can't legally drive in most of the states. Texas, 1.6 million undocumented, about 1.6 million undocumented people in Texas. Have you heard of like a subway or a train system or a bus system in Houston, Dallas, or Austin? They don't exist. How do those 1.6 million undocumented Texans get around? How can half of the construction industry in the state of Texas is based in undocumented labor? Then what happens?

Right. What happens to these businesses? Well, you're asking these questions, but it seems to me obvious that one of the things that will happen if this is executed is the prices of everything is going to go up. The prices of everything. Yes. And so when you start talking about rebuilding or fixing the economy and mass deportation, I don't understand how those things can coexist because—

If you're already voting because eggs are too expensive, I don't think people have any earthly idea how expensive produce is about to get if you start sending out people out of the country who are the only people who will do those jobs because, generally speaking, most people don't see those jobs as a way out of their circumstances because they're terrible jobs.

They're terrible jobs that most people would not want. Well, here, now, wait a second now. Now we're talking factually. Now we're trying to, and to be honest, when it comes to this issue, facts have completely gone out the window.

Right? The numbers don't matter. Right? Logic doesn't matter. Common sense doesn't matter. And mind you, I'm undocumented. I cannot vote. I've lived in this country for 31 years. I pay a lot. I should be a Republican. I paid so much taxes. Right? I've never voted. Right? And so the reality to me is both of these parties have been responsible for the mess that we're in, what Clinton did, what Obama did. But right now, Trump has made all of that worse. Right?

This is a nonpartisan issue. This should not be a Democrat or Republican issue. This should be what makes sense and what's actually in the interest of our country. And by the way, I was so moved that you opened up about your own family history.

Right? Because that's the question that I ask people. You know, I've been at Define American. Please check us out, defineamerican.com. Since I started this organization 13 years ago, I've been traveling the country nonstop asking this question. And, you know, when I go to Ohio or Wisconsin or Alabama, I was in Alabama before the election. I'm finishing reporting on a book. And I meet white people. So...

Before you became white, what were you? How did you get here? How did your family get here, your grandparents? What laws were in place? Do you understand that all you have to do is open a history book to know that your legality is really dependent on what year you came, what laws were in place, and the circumstances? So the humility that is required to say, wait a second, why did these people come? Why did my great-grandparents come?

How do you connect the dots? And then when people say the country's overpopulated, I don't know. I've been to South Dakota. I've been to Montana. I've been to Wyoming. Right. I know what it's going to require in an aging economy like ours. So many boomers right now need medical support and help. Who is going to take care of them? Jose, the thing that that I've noticed that's the difference in the rhetoric between the previous Trump administration and the current Trump campaign is

seems to be that before it was a focus on making sure that people, quote unquote, illegal immigrants didn't get into the country. Now it's about taking people who are already living here and kicking them out. A swift change in rhetoric between the last time around and this one. And now they're openly talking about detention camps or, you know, ripping people from their homes if they're in blue states that are trying to protect

those undocumented immigrants. How do you see that sort of shift in rhetoric changing not just what the result might be here, but also the fear mongering we spoke about and changing the behavior of undocumented people within this country may be deciding to leave? So let me before I answer that question, let me actually just do some grounding here. So I am here

illegally, right? I'm here without authorization from the government. I can get picked up at any time if they decide to do that. But I, as a person, am not illegal because people can't be illegal, right? So you can call it undocumented, you can call it unauthorized, you can call it whatever you want to call it. But again, I am here illegally. I'm not trying to be politically correct. I'm just naming the facts, right? But I think part of the rhetoric is we have been so brainwashed

to think of people who are here without documentation as criminals, right? That we have labeled an entire group of people. It never fails to amaze me, by the way, because my name is Jose Antonio Vargas. It doesn't get any more Latino than that. I look like this. By the way, it's called Filipino.

There's like 5 million of us in the country, just FYI. And so it never ceases to amaze me when people use-- again, I was in Birmingham. I was in Selma. I was in Montgomery. A few people recognize me because of what I do. And somebody said, oh.

you're the illegal Mexican guy. And I'm like, no, no, wait, what? We have been so used to calling people Mexican illegals. I have noticed this specifically in the South. And my mind is just blown by that. And

35 million Mexicans in this country, millions of whom have been here before there was a United States of America. Mexicans in this country right now are what Germans were in the 19th century, the dominant ethnic group, 35 million of them. And we have like brandished them as quote unquote illegal. So there's that. But that's part of the question you're asking. I think now this administration has gotten specific about

Right? And I think this is Stephen Miller doing his homework. By the way, I got to hand it to Stephen Miller. He has done his homework. And I don't know how that guy... I think he grew up in Santa Monica in L.A. I don't know what happened. But...

He has done his homework. He's going to have a big part in the administration working with the border SAR, and they're going to go layer by layer to say, wait a second, you know, those people that were just apprehended at the border, that dad who has been here for 40 years and hasn't adjusted status, even though his kids are U.S. citizens, all of them are going to be

All of those now is in play. And I think you're going to see kind of an onion peeling of the damage that's going to happen. My question is this. What are we in the media going to do about it?

Are we going to watch this and fall? And again, I used to be a Washington Post reporter, right? Are we going to fall in this objectivity thing where there's two equal sides? Are we going to make this a Republican versus Democrat thing? Or are we going to ask ourselves, what the hell are we watching? And is this going to happen in my watch?

Jose, my question, Jose, I cannot have you so indignant that you don't even acknowledge that you've been asked that serious question by a Pop-Tart. Oh, well, you know, I just had one this morning. It was a very serious question asked by a Pop-Tart. And I understand your level of indignance. I do. But you know, I thought you were I thought when you pointed at the camera, you were going to say and I'll ask you this Pop-Tart.

I thought you were going to reference at some point that the pop tart had asked you a question because people tune us out when we get too serious and indignant on this stuff. You know this, right? When we start to get strident on behalf of just basic human rights that I thought we were all in agreement upon in America. That's the part that's, that's one of the things that's so confusing to me. Like really? We want to be Russian now. Okay. We want to be Russia. We want to actually be as white as Russia. Well,

Wait a second, though. But that's how we got into this mess to begin with. We've gotten to this mess because we have been totally unserious as a country. All we want is to be distracted, right? That's what we want to be. We don't want to know what really happened. I mean, it's fascinating being in Alabama the days before the election, right? And being reminded of...

of not only the history of this country, but the present of this country, right? Black people in this country who built this country as enslaved people are still fighting for their equal rights, right? And we still don't know the full facts of what happened in the Civil War and the reconstruction of the country. And by the way,

I'm so used to being asked questions every time that it doesn't matter if it's a Pop-Tart or a Dim Sum. I will answer any question from anybody. I was like, they invited me to go to Alaska. I'll go to Alaska. We're Sarah Palin. Let's talk. There is not a single person that I will not talk to about this.

My only thing is we have to do it with actual facts. We have to know what we are dealing with, not talking points like facts. Well, Jose, I'm curious. You've mentioned several times that you're undocumented, uh,

- Yeah. - Do you not, as someone who's very outspoken and has a big platform, have you ever been afraid of reprisal or any sort of kind of consequences or repercussions? - Oh yeah, well dude, like when I did this, so I, mind you, no one forced me to come out 'cause usually people like me stay under the radar, right? Like you pass under the table, you wink at us, that kind of thing.

So I decided to do this very publicly because in some ways I was in a position where, look, I don't know why I never got caught. Whenever I filled out that form, you know, an employment job at the Washington Post, at the San Francisco Chronicle, I just never got caught. And I was turning 30. The DREAM Act was, you know, in Congress being debated. And I was watching all these young undocumented activists risk their lives, you

And there I was in my New York apartment, kind of at the height of my career. I just profiled Mark Zuckerberg for The New Yorker. I was like, and I felt really like, wait a second, I'm a part of something here. And here I am succeeding while people can't even pay for their tuition fee because they're undocumented. So I came out. I publicly said, I'm here. I did this during the Obama administration, right? That year, I think President Obama was deporting 400,000 people that year. And I raised my hand, come get me.

And dude, nobody got me. Of course, Bill O'Reilly called. I did Bill O'Reilly. I did all those shows, right? Nobody called. And then I was making a documentary. It's called Documented. I called ICE myself. I was like, hey, I haven't heard from you. Like, what? Are you going to deport me? Why? Why not? Again, I'm a journalist. I'm trying to follow this story, which happens to be mine.

And they said, we don't comment on your case. That was literally, this was for a Time Magazine cover story. I was like, I'm writing a cover story for Time Magazine. I need a comment from my government. Are you going to deport me? Why? Why not? And the comment of the government was no comment. Huh.

um and then I did get arrested I've been arrested and detained um once in Texas in 2014. I don't know if you remember 10 years ago when all those Central American kids were walking across the border through Rio so I went to Texas I don't know if you've been to the Rio Grande area so I got there the activists invited me the young activists in the area and the Rio Grande invited me to do an event with them you know to kind of

connect the dots between these Central American kids who are walking and us who came here as children. So I got there, and the moment I got there, you know, I move so fast sometimes I don't tell people where I'm going. I get there, my lawyer texts me, Moni texts me, he goes, hey, you're at the border. How are you going to get out? I'm like, what are you talking about? I have a flight tomorrow at Delta. I got to go to LA. Jose, you're at the border. Like, when you leave, when you go through TSA, there's going to be a Border Patrol agent next to the TSA agent.

And I was like, oh, I didn't know that. So then I said, I'm at the border. I'm here. And then they ended up arresting me. I was detained for like eight hours and then they released me.

Your story. So that's what's happened so far. You've devoted yourself to this, right? This is your cause. It is your life identity, right? You have dedicated yourself to the pursuit of making sure that people understand how important this one principle is. Well, I just say it because, you know, identity politics comes out a lot. So I'm undocumented, I'm gay, and I'm Filipino. But I would say that

the biggest identity I have is I'm a journalist. I've been a journalist since I was 17 years old. I'm 43 now.

And being a journalist for me means I ask hard questions. I look around and I go, wait a second, what don't I know? Who's not in the room? Who am I not hearing from? So that's the identity that I probably wear the most. And to your point, asking question how they define American in a country where there's 46 million people, in a country that was founded on the freedom of movement, I think that is going to be my life's work.

i gotta say though like you know because it's so easy to call people activists like you know i'm an activist i'm an advocate my question is why aren't you why aren't people activists and advocates why is it that a group of people have to be activists and advocates to remind people what's unequal and what's inequitable i just want to live my life i have books to write i have plays i want to do do you know what i mean and yet every day i have to i have to justify my existence

in this country. Talk about taxation without representation. I've been thinking these past few days, maybe I should gather all my undocumented people that I know and be like, wait a second, should we talk to the government about we paid all these taxes and we're not represented? And then I remind myself, they don't even think of us as human beings. How can we like, fuck

How can we talk about taxation without representation? You've never felt like you're losing like this, though, right? You've never felt like wherever your activism resides, wherever your passions reside here, it's never felt like you're losing the way that it feels like you're losing today, correct? Oh, yeah. This is the worst. This is the culmination of every lie, every... You know, I still haven't, to be honest, I still haven't had time to really...

and reflect on Vice President Harris and how she talked about immigration and this issue, knowing that for her, for Democrats, it's going to put a losing issue. They were bad. They were bad. They were awful. And Obama was bad on this and Biden was bad on it. Like they were all bad on it. Well, I have to say, again, this is why we have to look at the nuance, right? President Biden issued, you know, TPS, temporary protected status, right? For groups of people. And I

I'm going to wonder what that is. They have tried to do because look, thankfully, there are people, I don't want to name them. There are people at the White House who know what good looks like on this, who knows what fair looks like on this. But you know what they lose to? They lose to the narrative all the time. We live in Trump's narrative on immigration.

We live in Trump and Stephen Miller's narrative and Fox News. What would Fox News do without us? We're like the leading character on Fox News. And I used to go on Fox News, by the way, a lot. I would go there, control my eyebrows, and try to not fall apart in the middle of an interview. It was important to go on Fox News because then I would hear from people who were like, wait, what are you talking about? You've been here since you were 12. What do you mean you pay taxes? So then I'd get invited to the Nebraska party.

chamber of commerce meeting and then I'd go. So their audience is really important. But from a programming standpoint, I think it's listed somewhere that Fox News is entertainment.

Right. Like we're part of the reality television show that is America for Fox News and undocumented illegal aliens are like the leading character. Don't they owe us some residuals? Let me get something off that. Let me play for you something here. According to exit polls, more than 45 percent of Latino voters chose Trump. It's a 14 percent increase. It's a record for a Republican candidate. Here's one Latino Trump supporter explaining his vote to CNN.

If they let in hundreds of thousands of people who already have criminal records, if deporting them creates a mass deportation, I'm all for it. But what if rounded up in all of that are people who work on a farm, doing the jobs that Americans don't want to do? Does that worry you? That wouldn't be fair. Of course, you know, they need to make sure that they don't throw away, they don't kick out, they don't deport people that are family-oriented.

What's happening there? What's the disconnect? What's the disconnect? Well, first of all, one thing that is important, I think this is, again, common sense. We have to know who's coming to this country. We should know.

We don't right now. We have a system in which you actually don't know who's showing up. I still don't know what E-Verify really was, right? But that narrative of we don't want to let criminals in, when in reality, undocumented people who come here commit way less crimes than native-born citizens. And think about the psychology of that, by the way. When you come here, you want to go under the radar. You don't want to do anything that would rattle that, right? But

Now, one other point that he made is, this is again the dissidence, right? Well, we want to make sure that, you know, farmers, Alabama, again, so much of the South, here in the Central Valley in California where I'm at, they want, this is where I think we have so focused on immigrants as labor. Think about that. Whenever we talk about immigrants, the context is high-skilled labor, low-skilled labor, right? The labor of immigrants is what we want. We don't want the people.

Let me repeat. We need and want the labor, but we don't want the people. Now, what does that really mean? It means that I will continue to be afraid about what the future of this country looks like. Jose, thank you for being on with us. I will tell the people he is the author of the bestseller, Dear America, Notes of an Undocumented Citizen. Appreciate the knowledge. Appreciate the facts, sir. Thank you. Thank you so much for having me.